Gabe nodded. “I can see where she’d get that impression. Lot of people have been saying that lately.”
“Natural assumption, under the circumstances.”
“Probably.”
“I told her that was garbage. Said you were a Madison and Madisons never marry for money. Not that practical, when you get right down to it.”
“Good point.” Gabe waited a beat. “So, how did she respond to that observation?”
“She reminded me how everyone said that you were a different kind of Madison. I told her you were different, but not that different.”
“What else did she say?”
“Well, let’s see. I believe I may have pointed out that Madison Commercial is your passion and that when it comes to a Madison and his passion-”
“Nothing gets in the way. Yeah, right, I’ve heard that. She say anything else?”
The transition to night was complete at last. The phantom images receded into the darkness.
Mitchell exhaled slowly. “Seemed to think I’d maybe given you the wrong impression.”
“About what?”
“About what you’ve done with Madison Commercial.”
Gabe’s hands tightened a little on the wheel. “For the past year and a half you’ve been telling me that I’ve spent too much time fooling around with the company. Maybe you were right.”
Mitchell had to swallow twice to keep from sputtering. “Shoot and damn, son, you built that company from the ground up. You sweated blood to prove something to the whole damn world.”
“What did I prove?”
“You know what you proved. Hell, after you created Madison Commercial no one could say that every Madison who came along was doomed to screw up everything he touched.”
“You consider that a major accomplishment?”
“Damn right, I do.” He stared at the road. “More important than you’ll ever know.”
“How so?”
“Because after Madison Commercial, folks had to quit sayin’ that I had screwed up both my grandsons’ lives the same way I had messed up your father’s life.”
A crystalline silence enveloped the front seat of the car.
“Did people really say that?” Gabe asked after a while. “To your face?”
“Some said it to my face. Most folks said it behind my back. They were all pretty much agreed that I wasn’t fit to raise you and Rafe after Sinclair killed himself and your mother on that damn motorcycle.”
“Huh.”
“They said I set a piss-poor example for a couple of young boys.” He rubbed his jaw. “To tell you the truth, they were right. But what the hell was I gonna do? Not like there was anyone else around to take over the job.”
“You could have walked out. Disappeared. Let the social workers deal with us.”
“Bullshit. You don’t turn your grandkids over to the state to raise.”
“Some people would.”
“Madisons don’t do stuff like that.”
Gabe smiled slightly. “Got it.”
Mitchell suddenly realized that he wanted to explain things, but he didn’t know how to go about it. He wasn’t good at this kind of situation. He groped for the right words.
“The point I’m trying to make,” he said, “is that you were smart enough not to follow my bad example. You made something of yourself, Gabe. When you built M.C. you broke the Madison curse or jinx or whatever that made us all failures.”
“No.”
“What the hell do you mean? That’s exactly what you did and don’t you ever forget it.”
“It wasn’t me who broke the jinx,” Gabe said. “It was you.”
“Me?”
“Don’t you get it? You’re the one who changed after Dad’s death. And when you changed, you altered the future for Rafe and me.”
chapter 21
Lillian stopped the car in the drive, opened the door and checked her watch in the weak overhead light. Just after seven. There was no sign of Gabe and Mitchell yet but they would be here any minute. Gabe had called her from the outskirts of town a short while ago.
She had left the porch light on as well as several lamps inside the house. The cottage was illuminated with a warm, welcoming glow. Keys in hand, she collected the two sacks of groceries she had picked up at Fulton’s Supermarket and went up the porch steps. With a little jockeying, she managed to get the front door open without having to put down one of the grocery bags.
She walked into the front hall, kicked the door shut and wrestled her burdens into the kitchen. The house felt unaccountably cold.
She was certain she had left the thermostat set at a comfortable temperature.
An uneasy feeling drifted through her. There had been a cold draft in the mudroom the night someone had broken in.
She went to the door and studied the living room. Nothing appeared to be disturbed. Maybe she had left an upstairs window open a crack.
But the draft was not coming from the staircase. It emanated from the downstairs hall.
Her studio.
Galvanized, she rushed toward the guest bedroom. As soon as she turned the corner she saw that the door stood partially ajar, just as she remembered leaving it earlier. But through the narrow opening she could see that something was very wrong inside her studio.
A chill that had nothing to do with the draft of cold air went through her. With a sense of deep dread, she pushed the door open wide.
The studio was in chaos. The blank canvas on the easel had been ripped to shreds. Rags, brushes, and knives were scattered across the floor. There was paint everywhere. The contents of several tubes of paint had been smeared across one wall and the floor. Her palette lay upside down on the bed. Pages of drawings had been ripped from her sketchbook and crumpled into balls.
She finally identified the source of the cold draft. It came through the broken window.
Gabe felt everything inside him turn to stone when he saw Sean Valentine’s SUV parked in the drive.
Then he saw Lillian standing on the front porch talking to Valentine, and allowed himself to start breathing again.
He hit the breaks and switched off the engine. “Something’s wrong.”
“Yeah, I figured that.” Mitchell surveyed the scene on the porch. “Not like Sean to be running around at this time of night unless there’s trouble.”
Gabe got the Jag’s door open. He loped toward the steps. Sean and Lillian looked at him.
“What happened?” Gabe asked.
“Looks like Lillian had another visit from whoever broke in the other night,” Sean said.
“He vandalized my studio this time,” Lillian said shakily.
Mitchell came up the steps with his cane. He frowned at Lillian. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She smiled wanly. “But he made a mess. The floor, the bedspread, the wall. Everything’s covered in paint.”
Sean looked serious. “Didn’t think too much of your idea that this guy Witley might be stalking her, Madison. But after seeing what he did to that bedroom, I’m inclined to agree with you. Let’s go inside and see what we’ve got.”
“We’ve got jack squat, that’s what we’ve got,” Mitchell announced an hour later when they finally got around to dinner. He squinted at Lillian. “How the heck did you get into so much trouble running a matchmaking business?”
“Darned if I know.” She picked up her wineglass. “Friend of mine told me that the business was a lawsuit waiting to happen. But no one warned me about stalkers.”
“Well, don’t you worry about it too much.” Mitchell tackled his stir-fry vegetables with gusto. “One thing to be a stalker in Portland where no one notices a guy hanging around places he shouldn’t be hanging around. Another thing to do your stalking here in Eclipse Bay where a stranger gets noticed, especially at this time of year.”